ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ АТОМНОЙ ЭНЕРГЕТИКИ В ОБЕСПЕЧЕНИИ ЭНЕРГЕТИЧЕСКОЙ И ЭКОЛОГИЧЕСКОЙ БЕЗОПАСНОСТИ РОССИИ

Large-scale nuclear energetics can satisfy demands for all kinds of energy, i.e. it can secure energy safety of Russia and the whole humankind; however, this is associated with a number of daunting problems. With that, this approach is a priority for Russia. The State Corporation RosAtom is involved in the development of nuclear reactors in Russia and abroad on the conditions that the reactors will be supplied with nuclear fuel from Russia and the spent fuel will be returned to Russia for conversion into mixed uranium and plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel. In the city Zheleznogorsk near Krasnoyarsk, the first production line of a plant for treating 2000 tons of spent nuclear fuel annually has been already launched. The principal strategic plan of RosAtom, which has been being realized currently, is to develop nuclear power production based on fuel recycling using fast neutron reactors for generation of plutonium, which may be used in nuclear weapons and is most hazardous for the biosphere. The possibility of accidents associated with radioactive discharges cannot be excluded, and the hazardousness of such accidents in increased by using plutonium-based fuels. The nuclear power-based approach to energy production is costly but also dangerous not only for Russia.

The concept of inherent safety of generation V nuclear power plants

Elimination of significant risks in nuclear power production is at the present stage a necessity and goal-setting that determines its development in the near future. Of particular importance is the problem of maximum credibility and convincingly substantiated stability of nuclear power plants against severe accidents. The lack of clear logic, transparency and guarantees in the reliability of the announced nuclear safety significantly hinders its development, unnecessarily overcomplicating expensive technical solutions, thereby weakening the competitiveness of nuclear power. The originally proposed Concept of Inherent Safety set the task of solving the above problems; however, its specific content has not been explicitly presented so far, which allows many competitors to use its terminology to promote projects that are not directly related to the ‘spirit and letter’ of Inherent Safety. This paper is intended to fill this gap. The authors also discuss the conditions for the generation and development of new self-protection means for innovative nuclear reactors as well as the phenomenological and technical aspects for their implementation based on the deterministic formalism.

Detection of an unknown emission source in the Baltic Sea using the new oceanographic tracer U-233/U-236

<p><span>By analysing the two long-lived anthropogenic Uranium (U) isotopes U-233 and U-236 in different compartments </span><span>of the environment affected by releases of nuclear power production or by global fallout from nuclear weapons tests</span><span>, we showed that the corresponding isotopic ratios U-233/U-236</span><span> differ by one order of magnitude. Based on these experimental results which were obtained with the ultra-sensitive detection method Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, we suggested a representative ratio for nuclear weapons fallout of </span><span>U-233/U-236</span><span> =</span><span> (1.40 ± 0.15) ·10</span><sup><span>-2</span></sup><span> and (0.12 ± 0.01) ·10</span><sup><span>-2</span></sup><span> for releases from nuclear power production. Consequently, the </span><span>U-233/U-236</span><span> ratio not only </span><span>has the potential to become a novel sensitive fingerprint for releases from nuclear industry, but could also serve as a powerful oceanographic tracer due to the conservative behaviour of U in ocean water which does not suffer from chemical fractionation. </span></p><p><span>As a first application of this paired tracer, we studied the distribution of U-233 and U-236 concentrations in addition to I-129 in the Baltic Sea which is known to have received inputs of radionuclides from various contamination sources including the two European reprocessing plants, global fallout from weapons testings and fallout from the Chernobyl accident. Our data indicate an additional unidentified source of reactor U-236 in the Baltic Sea demonstrating the high sensitivity of the U-233/U-236 ratio to distinguish different emission sources in water mixing processes.</span></p>

CHINA’S NUCLEAR POWER PRODUCTION IN LIGHT OF GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS

Nuclear power production is a dynamic sector of the People’s Republic of China economy. The fulfillment of the plan of nuclear energy development will put China on the first place in the global production of electricity at the nuclear power plants before 2030. The development of nuclear power is in line with China’s sustainable development strategy and plays an important role in addressing both resource scarcity as well as air pollution and climate change issues. The article discusses some aspects of cooperation between Russia and China in the field of nuclear energy.

The Nuclear Power Dilemma—Between Perception and Reality

Motivated by the environmental challenges and the increase in energy demand, this review assesses the suitability of nuclear power production as an alternative option to using fossil fuels. First, we assess the competitiveness of nuclear power compared to other power sources considering its economic efficiency, environmental impact and implications for health, and conclude that this is a viable option to serve in addition to and as a backup to renewable sources. Second, we review previous findings in various fields on advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power technology and conclude that there is a gap between reality and perception. Third, we discuss challenges related to nuclear weapons proliferation and misperceived public opinion on nuclear power. We conclude that the gap between perception and reality stems from a lack of consolidated interdisciplinary view, media communications focusing mainly on unilateral assessments.

A Dynamic Weighted RBF-Based Ensemble for Prediction of Time Series Data from Nuclear Components

In this paper, an ensemble approach is proposed for prediction of time series data based on a Support Vector Regression (SVR) algorithm with RBF loss function. We propose a strategy to build diverse sub-models of the ensemble based on the Feature Vector Selection (FVS) method of Baudat & Anouar (2003), which decreases the computational burden and keeps the generalization performance of the model. A simple but effective strategy is used to calculate the weights of each data point for different sub-models built with RBF-SVR. A real case study on a nuclear power production component is presented. Comparisons with results given by the best single SVR model and a fixed-weights ensemble prove the robustness and accuracy of the proposed ensemble approach.